GLEX-2012.05.2.4x12761

Morpheus: Advancing Technologies for Human Exploration

Jon B. Olansen, PhD NASA, United States, jon.b.olansen@.gov

Stephen R. Munday1, Jennifer D. Mitchell2, Michael Baine, PhD3

ABSTRACT

NASA’s Morpheus Project has developed and tested a prototype planetary capable of vertical takeoff and landing. Designed to serve as a vertical testbed (VTB) for advanced spacecraft technologies, the vehicle provides a platform for bringing technologies from the laboratory into an integrated flight system at relatively low cost. This allows individual technologies to mature into capabilities that can be incorporated into human exploration missions. The Morpheus vehicle is propelled by a LOX/ engine and sized to carry a payload of 1100 lb to the lunar surface. In addition to VTB vehicles, the Project’s major elements include ground support systems and an operations facility. Initial testing will demonstrate technologies used to perform autonomous hazard avoidance and precision landing on a lunar or other planetary surface. The Morpheus vehicle successfully performed a set of integrated vehicle test flights including hot-fire and tethered hover tests, leading up to un-tethered “free-flights.” The initial phase of this development and testing campaign is being conducted on-site at the (JSC), with the first fully integrated vehicle firing its engine less than one year after project initiation. Designed, developed, manufactured and operated in-house by engineers at JSC, the Morpheus Project represents an unprecedented departure from recent NASA programs that traditionally require longer, more expensive development lifecycles and testing at remote, dedicated testing facilities. Morpheus testing includes three major types of integrated tests. A hot-fire (HF) is a static vehicle test of the LOX/Methane propulsion system. Tether tests (TT) have the vehicle suspended above the ground using a crane, which allows testing of the propulsion and integrated Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) in hovering flight without the risk of a vehicle departure or crash. Morpheus free-flights (FF) test the complete Morpheus system without the additional safeguards provided during tether. A variety of free-flight trajectories are planned to incrementally build up to a fully functional Morpheus lander capable of flying planetary landing trajectories. In FY12, these tests will culminate with autonomous flights simulating a 1 km lunar approach trajectory, hazard avoidance maneuvers and precision landing in a prepared hazard field at the (KSC). This paper describes Morpheus’ integrated testing campaign, infrastructure, and facilities, and the payloads being incorporated on the vehicle. The Project’s fast pace, rapid prototyping, frequent testing, and lessons learned depart from traditional engineering development at JSC. The Morpheus team employs lean, agile development with a guiding belief that technologies offer promise, but capabilities offer solutions, achievable without astronomical costs and timelines.

1 NASA, United States, [email protected] 2 NASA, United States, [email protected] 3 NASA, United States, [email protected]

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1. INTRODUCTION and the oxygen is compatible on-board with life support systems and power generation. These attributes make NASA’s strategic goal of extending human activities across LOX/methane an attractive propulsion technology for a the solar system requires an integrated architecture to lander of this scale. conduct human space exploration missions beyond low earth orbit (LEO). This architecture must include advanced, ALHAT, the primary Morpheus payload, provides the robust in-space transit and landing vehicles capable of second key technology: autonomous landing and hazard supporting a variety of lunar, asteroid and planetary avoidance. When landing autonomously on any planetary or missions; automated hazard detection and avoidance other surface, the vehicle must be able to identify a safe technologies that reduce risk to crews, landers and precursor landing site that is free of large boulders, rocks, craters, or robotic payloads; and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) to highly sloping surfaces. Morpheus is designed to carry support crews during extended stays on extraterrestrial ALHAT sensors and software supporting tests that will surfaces and provide for their safe return to earth. The demonstrate an integrated vehicle capability to perform Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Program portfolio these tasks. within NASA includes several fast-paced, milestone-driven projects that are developing these necessary capabilities and, 2. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION when integrated with subsystem technologies developed by Science Mission Directorate (SMD) investments, will form The VTB system elements include the flight test vehicle, the basis for a project. Specifically, the ground systems, and operations. Morpheus, Autonomous Landing & Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT), and Regolith & Environment Vehicle Science & Oxygen & Lunar Volatiles Extraction Morpheus design and development began in June 2010, (RESOLVE) projects provide the technological foundation primarily by an in-house team at NASA’s Johnson Space for lunar surface demonstration missions later in this Center. Morpheus is a “” lander design with four tanks decade, and for key components of the greater exploration and a single engine. The primary structure consists of architecture required to move humans beyond LEO. welded aluminum box beams, machined parts, and The Morpheus Project provides an integrated vertical test aluminum plate. The landing struts have honeycomb crush bed (VTB) platform for advancing multiple subsystem pads in the feet to attenuate landing loads. The propellant technologies. While technologies offer promise, capabilities tanks are made of welded 5059 aluminum hemispheres. The offer potential solutions for future human exploration avionics and guidance, navigation and control (GN&C) beyond LEO. Morpheus provides a bridge for evolving components are located on a plate that spans the top deck of these technologies into capable systems that can be the primary structure. demonstrated and tested. This paper describes the activities The propulsion system uses an impinging element-type of the Morpheus Project, ongoing integration with ALHAT engine design, with liquid oxygen and methane as the in FY12, and expectations for the future, with the goal of propellants. The engine is film-cooled and operates as a developing and demonstrating these human spaceflight blow-down system producing up to 4300 lbf of thrust. Two capabilities with robotic missions to the lunar surface. orthogonal electromechanical actuators (EMAs) gimbal the The Morpheus Project provides a liquid oxygen engine to provide thrust vector control of lateral translation (LOX)/liquid methane (LCH4) propelled vehicle that, and pitch and yaw attitudes. Cold gas jets provide roll leveraging subsystem designs developed by other vertical control using the pressurized in the propellant tanks. testbeds (VTB) such as the Marshall Space Flight Center’s Varying the engine throttle setting provides vertical control (MSFC) Pallet Lander, may be developed into reusable of ascent and descent rates. platforms for in-space transit and/or lunar landing for The avionics and power subsystems include the flight multiple missions and payloads of various sizes. Such computer, data recording, instrumentation, communications, platforms could support robotic missions and eventually cameras, and batteries. The flight computer is an AITech manned missions with safer, “greener” propellants that, S900 CompactPCI board with a PowerPC 750 processor. relative to hypergolics, should better support cryogenic Up to 16 GB of data can be stored on board. Data buses storage in space and integration with life support and fuel include RS-232, RS-422, Ethernet, and MIL-STD-1553. cell consumables and ISRU systems. Multiple channels of analog and digital inputs are used for The LOX/methane propulsion system is one of two key both operational and developmental flight instrumentation, technologies that Morpheus is designed to integrate and including temperature sensors, pressure transducers, tri-axial demonstrate. The Morpheus LOX/methane propulsion accelerometers, and strain gauges. Wireless communications system can provide a specific impulse during space flight of between ground operators and the vehicle use a spread up to 321 seconds; it is clean-burning, non-toxic, and spectrum frequency band. Two on-board cameras provide cryogenic, but space-storable. Additionally, for future space views of the engine firing during testing. Eight lithium missions the methane could be produced in situ on , polymer batteries provide vehicle power.

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The GN&C sensor suite includes a Javad Global Positioning safest regions to land without hazards. To avoid interference System (GPS) receiver, an International Space Station (ISS) from surface dust while descending to a safe region, the version of Honeywell’s Space Integrated GPS/INS (SIGI), a ALHAT design supplements the flash LIDAR with a Litton LN-200 Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), and an Doppler LIDAR velocimeter, an IMU, and software to Acuity laser altimeter. The vehicle is able to determine ensure precise measurements of lander attitude, altitude, and position to less than one meter, velocity to less than three velocity are available at all times during the final phases of cm/second, and attitude knowledge within 0.05 degrees. landing. These surface relative measurements provide the onboard navigation system with sufficient accuracy during The vehicle software is architected around Goddard Space last 30 seconds of the descent phase to navigate to the Flight Center’s (GSFC) Core Flight Software (CFS). GSFC chosen safe region regardless of any dust disturbed by the designed CFS as a set of reusable software modules in a descent engine. flexible framework that can be adapted to various space applications. Morpheus software developers built upon CFS Ground Systems by adding custom application code unique to the Morpheus vehicle and mission design. The VTB flight complex (VFC) includes 20’ x 20’ concrete pads located on a section of the JSC antenna range near an The initial Morpheus VTB 1.0 configuration was tested old Apollo-era antenna tower. About 2000 feet away is the from April 2011 through August 2011. In late 2011 and Morpheus control center for on-site field testing at JSC, the early 2012, the team began upgrading the VTB to the small 2-story building 18 that was formerly used for rooftop Morpheus 1.5 configuration, including sequentially higher GPS testing and storage. The main upstairs room has a performance HD4 and HD5 engines, an improved avionics window that looks directly out onto the test area, making it and power distribution design, the addition of LOX/methane highly suitable as the operations “front room,” configured thrusters for roll control, and the incorporation of the with three rows of computer tables for operator ALHAT sensors and software. This vehicle configuration is workstations. An adjacent room serves as the “back room” currently in testing as described in later sections. for support personnel.

ALHAT Payload The operator workstations use GSFC’s Integrated Test and Operations System (ITOS) ground software. Like CFS, One of the primary objectives of the Morpheus project is to ITOS was developed as ground control and display software demonstrate and advance the Technology Readiness Level for GSFC space vehicles and has been made available to (TRL) of precision landing and hazard avoidance other projects at NASA. ITOS is individually configured on capabilities developed by the ALHAT system. The ALHAT each workstation to display vehicle telemetry and project has been developing an integrated Autonomous information unique to each operator position. Guidance, Navigation, and Control (AGNC) hardware and software system capable of detecting and avoiding surface During each test, the Morpheus Project streams mission hazards and autonomously guiding a manned or unmanned telemetry, voice loops, and video from the testing control space vehicle to a safe touchdown within 90 meters of a pre- center to JSC’s Mission Control Center (MCC) over designated planetary or asteroid site. This payload project dedicated wireless and wired networks. From there, data and has been conducted with a team of technical experts from video can be made available to internal and external JSC, Draper Laboratory, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), networks for NASA personnel and the general public. Langley Research Center (LaRC), and the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. A thrust termination system (TTS) is employed both for range safety and independent test termination purposes. ALHAT is using an onboard laser altimeter and flash Light Closing either of two motorized valves in the TTS will shut Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) for the onboard sensors to off the flow of liquid oxygen and methane to the engine and perform Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN) and Hazard terminate engine thrust. These TTS valves are completely Relative Navigation (HRN). A flash LIDAR flashes a very independent from the rest of the vehicle systems and quick laser beam over a planetary surface area of commanded using separate Ultra High Frequency (UHF) approximately 100 x 100 meters. This cross-cutting radios. The commands to initiate thrust termination are sent technology is also being employed by commercial ISS from a control unit located in the operations center during supply companies and NASA’s Orion project for automated any live engine testing. rendezvous and docking (AR&D). The photons emitted from the LIDAR strike the surface of the target object or Ground systems also include propulsion ground support surface and return to a timing detector grid, giving very equipment (GSE). The consumables required for an engine precise range and bearing measurements for each photon 30 test include liquid oxygen, liquefied natural gas, helium, times a second. These three dimensional measurements liquid nitrogen, and gaseous nitrogen. The power GSE is a provide elevation information for each small segment of the portable ground power cart that is used to supply power to surface, thus producing a digital elevation map that can be the vehicle until the test procedures call for a switch to used to determine hazards to the landing vehicle. Software internal vehicle power. The ground power cart uses heavy algorithms interpret this information and determine the duty batteries and can provide up to 72 amp-hours of power 3 for pre- and post-test activities. The mechanical GSE Additional restraints are attached below the vehicle made of includes a rented crane for tethered or hot fire / hold-down nylon overwrapped with fireproof insulation. testing. For tethered tests, an energy absorber is placed between the vehicle and the crane boom arm. The energy absorber is an aluminum piston and cylinder with cardboard honeycomb material that can attenuate up to 10,000 lb. This looad attenuation protects the vehicle and crane structures in the event engine thrust needs to be terminated prematurely, causing the vehicle to drop to the end of the tether.

Ground systems also include a variety of transportation assets, provided primarily by JSC Center Operations.

Operations

The final element of the Morpheus system is Operations. Nine primary operator positions are staffed by team members: test conductor (TC), operator (OPS), propulsion (PROP), avionics, power and software (APS), guidance, navigation and control (GNC), ground control (GC), two range safety officers (RSO-1 and RSO-2), and the flight Figuure 1 – Morpheus in Hot-fire Test Configuration manager (FM). During tests with payloads aboard, another position may be included, such as one for ALHAT. Each position is certified through specific training. The objectives for hoot-fire tests include demonstration of the igniter,, engine ignittion, performance at varied throttle Certification is also required for three pad crew (PAD) settings and burn duration tests. The Morpheus project test positions. PAD-1 is the pad crew leader, responsible for approach limits testing on a dedicated engine test stand and communicating directly with the test conductor during emphasizes a quick transition to integrated vehicle tests. operations and ensuring each procedural step is executed at Testing on the vehicle promotes optimization of engine the pad. PAD-2 and PAD-3 provide support to PAD-1, and performance for the actual vehicle propulsion feed system conduct all handling of cryogenic fluids and most other instead of the test stand system. It also allows gimbal consumables. sweeps to evaluate the integrated performance of the actuatoors under load. The majority of engine On test days, many other JSC and Morpheus team personnel characterization is conducted on the vehicle, essentially serve in various functions. JSC riggers support vehicle making the hot-fire configuration the primary engine test transportation and crane operations. Support personnel for stand ffoor the Morpheus Project. each subsystem monitor data or help out during testing in Tether Testing the “back room” of the control center. Other team members standby for potential troubleshooting if problems arise. For tether tests the vehicle is suspended from a crane as shown in figure 2 to enable testing of the propulsion and 3. MORPHEUS TEST CAMPAIGN integrated GN&C wiithout the risk of a vehicle departure or crash. The goal of these tests is typically to ascend 5’ Morpheus testing includes three major types of integrated vertically and hover in place for a pre-programmed duration. tests: hot-fire, tether, and free-flight. Upon successful completion of the hover, the vehicle Hot-fire Testing descends and “lands” at the end of the tether. During hot-fire testing the vehicle is completely restrained Due to the potential dynamic loads during tethered flight, a from movement and the primary focus is to test the substantially larger 120-ton crane is used for this testing. An LOX/methane propulsion system. In this configuration a energy absorber in line with the tether reduces the loads on crane is used to suspend the vehicle above the ground to both the crane and Morpheus vehicle and help prevent provide clearance for the vehicle exhaust plume. The damage to either asseet. vehicle is also constrained from below using straps anchored to the ground that prevent vertical and lateral vehicle motion. Figure 1 shows the vehicle during test in the hot-fire configuration. The vehicle is suspended approximately 20’ above a concrete pad by a crane outfitted with shielding to prevent damage from flames or debris during the test firing.

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Immeddiately following the hot-fire tests, five tether tests were conducted between April 25th and June 1st, 2011, with the primary objective to demonstrate stable 6-DOF GN&C. The rapid schedule of the first four tests was driven by a demonstration flight planned for the JSC Innovation Day event on May 4th. The most dramatic tetther test in this test campaign was TT2. Immeddiately upon engine ignition, an H-bridge circuit controllling the throttle valve failed, causing the valve to remain fully open (100% throttle). The vehicle rapidly ascended and an asymmetric bungee arrangemennt caused a pitching moment. When the ignition sequence was complete and control was handed over to GN&C the vehicle was already in a presumably unrecoverable trajectory. To make matters worse, the GN&C system also contaiined a 90- degree clocking error in the coordinate frame due to an incomplete vendor specification of the IMU. As a result, the GN&C could not stabilize the vehicle motion. Figure 2 – Morpheus in Tether Test Configuration

Tether testing provides the first opportunity to perform integrated testing of the Morpheus vehicle with closed-loop GN&C. The primary objective of tether testing is to demonstrate 6 degree-of-freedom (DOF) GN&C for vertical translation, hover and simulated landing operations. An additional objective is to understand the integrated performance of avionics, propulsion, and GN&C. Tether testing allows rapid refinement of this integrated performance without risk of a vehicle crash. Free-Flight Testing Morpheus “free-flights” demonstrate the fully integrated flight capability of the vehicle with no restraints. Free-flight safeguards are automatic aborts on-board aborts, remotely commanded aborts, as well as a redundant and independent flight termination system that can be activated by spotters to visually determine trajectory deviations. A variety of free- Figure 4 – Morpheus Tether Test 2 (TT2) flight trajectories can be flown to incrementally build up to a fully functional Morpheus lander capable of flying planetary landing trajectories. 4. MORPHEUS 1.0 TEST CAMPAIGN During the Morpheus 1.0 test campaign, a series of three hot-fire tests was conducted to refine propulsion system performance. This was also the first opportunity to test vehicle hardware and software together. Due to the fast pace of developmentn , these tests were used as verification tests for numerous software routines. The Morpheus team completed the entire series of hot-fire tests in 8 days and successfully demonstrated all test objectives except for handover from propulsion to GN&C. The team quickly resolved all issues and confirmed solutions in subsequent tests, gaining valuable vehicle operations experience and confidence to proceed with tether Figure 5 – Morpheus Tether Test 5 (TT5) testing.

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This uncontrolled motion continued despite on-board interaction between the GN&C and propulsion systems. software and ground commands for soft and hard abort Tether Test 10 is shown in Figure 6. Table X lists the test engine shutdown. These primary methods for engine summary for Morpheus 1.5. shutdown all rely on the throttle valve, which had failed to Add summary / results on Morpheus 1.5 testing. full open. After 13 seconds of erratic flight the thrust was finally terminated when the wired FTS system was manually activated. Since the vehicle was tethered to the crane, no vehicle damage resulted from this test. Despite the dramatic and uncontrolled motion seen in TT2, this test resulted in identification of the key issues mentioned above without any vehicle or property damage. Another notable test was Tether Test 5. TT5 was conducted on June 1st, 2011, following a design review and completion of the recommended software changes. The plan and objectives for TT5 included a targeted hover time of 40 seconds. During this test the vehicle successfully completed a full duration run with nominal shutdown after 42 seconds. GN&C performance was improved and the vehicle hovered throughout the test with only a minor wobble with a period of approximately 3.2 seconds. The propulsion system performed nominally and reached steady-state engine temperatures for the first time during Morpheus vehicle testing.

Table X. Morpheus 1.0 Test Summary Figure 6 – Morpheus Tether Test 10 Test Description Name / Objectives Notes Hot Fire 1 Igniter Tests 2 consecutive successful Table X. Morpheus 1.5 Test Summary 4/14/2011 igniter tests. Tesst Descrription Flight software errors found Name / Objeectives Notes Hot Fire 2 Igniter Tests 29 seconds burn time Hot Fire 5 Engine 40 sec burn time 4/19/2011 Engine 2/27/12 firing test firing test Tether Hover test 30 sec burn time Tether Hover test 13 sec burn time Test 7 Test 2 Stuck throttle and tether 3/5/22012 4/27/2011 forces caused dynamic Tether Hover test 55 sec burn time uncontrolled motion. Test 8 Good 40 sec hover with Flight terminated 3/13/2012 GN&C oscillations Tether Hover test 20 sec burn time Tether Hover test 47 sec burn time Test 3 Soft abort due to cable snag Test 9 Guidance and control 5/3/2011 and software issue 3/16/2012 algorithm issue Tether Hover test 29 sec burn time Hot Fire 6 Short hold- 5 sec burn time Test 4 Attitude rate issue; 4/2/22012 down test on Footpads overheateed 5/4/2011 terminated flight early pad Tether Hover test 34 sec burn time; good hovere Tether Hover test 62 sec burn time Test 5 Minor control wobble Testt 10 GN&C altitude issue 6/1/2011 4/4/22012 Tether Hover test 11 sec burn time Test 6 Engine burn-through Tether Hover test 56 sec burn time 8/31/2011 Testt 11 Stable altitude but lateral 4/11/2012 oscillations 5. MORPHEUS 1.5 TEST CAMPAIGN Tether Hover test 69 sec burn time The Morpheus 1.5 test campaign began in February 2012. Testt 12 45 sec hover (longest yet) To date, two hot fire tests and six tether tests have been 4/18/2012 Still lateral oscillations performed, and the HD4 engine has been fired for over six minutes. The six tether tests have been opportunities for the design team to continue to characterize and improve the 6

6. LEAN DEVELOPMENT TENETS In addition to the technological advancements, another objective of the Morpheus Project is to change perceptions and attitudes about what can be done, what should be done, and what is possible. It is about a return to the fundamental engineering design practices. It is about building and developing a workforce that will have the skills and capabilities to build the next generation of spacecraft and space systems to enable human exploration beyond low earth orbit. As a result, Morpheus strives to:

- Provide hands on work to civil servants and some key contractor partners - Understand the underlying engineering trades and The X-axis of the graph shows some representative drivers through simple analysis and testing programs, projects, or organizations, while the Y-axis - Build prototypes early and often to drive out design represents rigor in the form of configuration management, issues, operational concepts, and flight requirements development and flow down, safety reviews, requirements decision board hierarchy, or any other number of - Test relentlessly mechanisms and processes used to add rigor, repeatability, - Take smart risks redundancy or discipline into the execution of a spaceflight mission. - Strive toward simple designs - Accept the risk of test failures in order to learn, In human spaceflight, there has not been the opportunity for iterate, and advance more quickly decades to develop completely new systems until the - Encourage openness and curiosity regarding new was formulated. NASA has gone a design and analysis techniques generation since building a piloted spacecraft. Many of the - Leverage off existing facility and institutional best talent in the Agency have spent their entire careers in capacity the sustaining or operational phase of the Shuttle and ISS Programs. Because of these factors it is difficult for our - Leverage and coalesce existing efforts and workforce to move toward the left of Figure 1. It actually technology helps to work with some of the aerospace startups in order - Build and manage a coalition of innovative and to see the other extreme and enable intelligent choices as to traditional partnerships the “right” rigor for a development or prototype system. The design, development, test, and operations of this project Ultimately however there is no formula for determining the leverage technology work in the Agency that has been “right” level of any of these attributes; it must be agreed on ongoing, partnerships that have been in place for many by the project leadership. “It is not about having process or years, and facilities and resources that already exist. not having process, it is about the right level of process at Integrating into a flying demonstration platform provides a the right time”. means to mature those leveraged technologies and thereby enable more cost effective human space flight. Risk Acceptance Also key to lean development is accepting appropriate risk. Project Rigor The project must be very clear about what risk is acceptable. The real trick to sustainable lean development is finding the For early development and testing of engineering right level of rigor and discipline appropriate for the prototypes, accepting the complete loss of the prototype or particular project under consideration. The following engineering unit may be appropriate. It doesn’t mean the graphic illustrates the concept further as applied to the project doesn’t act responsibly and professionally, it is a prototype Morpheus lander. realization that the reason you build prototypes is because you don’t have all the answers and testing and trying different designs leads to the answers. But sometimes those tests will fail and sometimes fail spectacularly. The project must manage the appropriate risk.

Partnering

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Specifically partnering with external non-traditional partners NASA often forgets our roots in building prototypes and can be beneficial. Those partners bring innovation and new performing relentless testing. For lean development it is methods. Non-traditional partners validate your own good imperative to foster and encourage “Home Depot” processes and shine a light on your inefficiencies. It is often engineering - the act of building prototypes and engineering difficult to see how to improve your own processes when tests with simple hardware at hand. This allows quick and that is all you know. Even when improvements can be cheap understanding of the physics, how things go together, identified they are often incremental and seldom or cheaply evaluates competing concepts. revolutionary, because all the data is grounded in the process the team knows. Partners can often help show other The Morpheus example is of a slosh test. For a lunar lander ways and other possibilities. two thirds of the mass of the lander is propellant, so propellant slosh is important to understand and manage. The The Morpheus project teams with key partners in industry first prototype the project built did not have slosh baffles in the propellant tanks (because we were using existing tanks). For the current vehicle, however, we wanted to have baffles as that would be closer to the flight vehicle configuration. Build Engineering Prototypes Engineers on the team were trying to understand slosh for • If you wait to build the perfect our four tank configuration, developing a computer thing, you won’t get to, and it won’t simulation, and planning a full scale slosh characterization be perfect anyway test on the first lander prototype. The team developed a • Engineering prototypes are for quick prototype shown below with $60 worth of Home learning and failing quickly Depot hardware. A series of tests were run which provided • Build, fail, improve, repeat data to anchor the computer simulation, evaluate competing techniques for performing the full scale test, and more importantly gave the engineers an intuitive feel for the dynamics which led to an elegant design for the baffles for the Morpheus vehicle. (including emerging aerospace companies), academia, centers within NASA, other government agencies, and international partners. All teaming arrangements are based on the technology, hardware, or expertise that partner brings to bear. The project also continuously seeks innovative and unconventional non-aerospace partnerships.

Create a Sense of Urgency Every day matters. Every meeting is important or don’t have 7. CONCLUSIONS it. Products are good, but products delivered quickly make The Morpheus project has provided an opportunity for a all the difference. A sense of urgency makes the team mostly civil servant team to conduct end-to-end vehicle intolerant of inefficiency. It drives innovation and spurs flight operations in a terrestrial vertical test bed, and to other ways of doing business. It excites and motivates. The further advance integrated technologies that will benefit milestone needs to be barely achievable. If it is too far away human spaceflight. Each flight test opportunity provided we tend to think too much. We take time to plan and analyze valuable insights, even when the primary test objectives and re-analyze. We debate and consider. We work on things were not met. in Stephen Covey’s quadrant of important-but-not-urgent and when you have a lot of time the list of “important” Tether Test 2, for example, had multiple failures that led to becomes long. We develop elaborate organizational an unplanned swinging trajectory on the end of the tether. constructs. The team would likely never have planned a test with those test conditions, yet the “test failure” provided a good Given too little time we don’t commit. We don’t believe, we training opportunity for the team to execute an abort under know the schedule will slip and we try only to not be the safe conditions for both personnel and the vehicle. After the system that publicly causes the slip. We don’t try to be the test, the throttle valve driver electronics design was fastest camper running from the bear; we only try to be a bit reviewed and improved significantly, allowing the closing faster than the slowest. of previous discrepancies that had been unresolved. The The key is a believable but challenging and audacious time GN&C subsystem team was able to review navigation data constraint. Then we innovate and maximally leverage our for dynamic conditions that would not have otherwise been capabilities. It is then when we break down barriers, work obtained, and discovered a frame transformation error that our best as a team, and truly do great things. was not observable during static testing. Lessons were learned, problems were fixed, and the team turned around “Home Depot” Engineering the vehicle for another test less than one week later. This is

8 in part due to a project culture that recognizes the value of As mentioned previously, one of the goals of this project is testing, failing, and recovering quickly to move forward and demonstration of a few key technologies. These test again. technologies have been maturing separately and at their own schedule. The Morpheus Project provides a focus and an The project successes have been enabled in part by opportunity to demonstrate the technologies in a relevant purposefully considering an appropriate use of rigor in the flight environment. Too often, technologies are not processes and methodologies executed by the team during developed to a level at which a program or project can the ramp up to flight testing. Because of the fast pace and utilize them. Because of that, the technologies often are small Morpheus team size, this required innovative deemed too risky to adopt by large scale development solutions for team collaboration and communication, as well programs. The large scale development programs, by as a project management culture that expected any process definition then, are only incremental, fail to fully drive the or “overhead” activity to buy its way into the project based state of the art in space systems, and are not as able to on good rationale and benefit. realize cost savings through innovative approaches. By focusing key technologies on a flight demonstration, those Partnering with commercial partners such as Armadillo technologies are then available for a multitude of other Aerospace, which is a very small and relatively new applications. company on the space scene, provided the NASA team with visibility into their approach to project execution and While lunar landers were used successfully during the systems engineering, and they in turn gained more insight Apollo era, there were certain risks taken with Apollo that into the NASA safety and project management cultures. NASA intends to reduce or eliminate in future lunar Commercial space companies use a wide range of vehicles, regardless of whether these are manned or approaches for their projects, as do the different NASA unmanned. The ALHAT technology will also allow us to organizations and projects. By considering a full range of safely land on various planets, , and asteroids at options, the result for Morpheus is a tailored approach that essentially any desired surface location under any lighting has more rigor than typically employed for a “technology conditions. To achieve the necessary technology readiness development” project but less than that used for “human level, the ALHAT sensors and software package have to be space flight.” tested and demonstrated. With successful tests and demonstrations currently underway the ALHAT system can 8. SUMMARY be verified to TRL 6.

NASA’s Morpheus Project has developed and tested a Following the terrestrial flight tests with a successful space prototype planetary lander capable of vertical takeoff and demonstration (i.e. safe landing on the ) of the landing designed to serve as a testbed for advanced targeted technologies, LOX/Methane propulsion and the spacecraft technologies. The Morpheus vehicle has ALHAT system can be elevated to TRL 9, and can safely be successfully performed a set of integrated vehicle test flights used for future manned or robotic vehicles at any destination including hot-fire and tether tests, which will ultimately in the solar system. culminate in a 1km slant range surface approach trajectory. This development and testing campaign has been conducted on-site at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), with initial tests occurring less than one year after project start. Designed, BIOGRAPHIES developed, manufactured and operated in-house by Jon B. Olansen, PhD – Dr. Olansen engineers at JSC, with a number of partners, the Morpheus serves as the Project Manager for the Project represents an unprecedented departure from recent Morpheus Project, He began his NASA programs and projects that traditionally require career as a Space Shuttle flight longer development lifecycles and testing at remote, controller, supporting 32 missions dedicated testing facilities. and logging >4200 hours in Mission In early FY12, Morpheus made a number of upgrades and Control. Jon earned his B.S. in improvements to the vehicle and ground subsystems, Aerospace Engineering and M.S. in including integration of the Autonomous Landing and Mechanical Engineering from the Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) Project’s University of Notre Dame. He obtained his Ph.D. in hardware and software components. These upgrades will Mechanical Engineering (Biomedical Focus) as a provide improved performance, expanded capabilities, and National Instruments Fellow at Rice University, where he better robustness for an extended test campaign that will specialized in biomedical experimentation in culminate in high energy trajectories that simulate a lunar electrophysiology and cardiopulmonary hemodynamics. landing approach. The initial test campaign will be He has published several journal articles related to his conducted at the Johnson Space Center, and will be research and authored a reference book on biomedical followed by high energy trajectories at the Kennedy Space instrumentation. He returned to NASA to represent the Center. Astronaut Office in the design, development, and operation of human life sciences experiments destined for 9 the International Space Station. Dr. Olansen has since held a number of positions of increasing responsibility including tours in Safety & Mission Assurance, the Shuttle Program Office and the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, before undertaking his current role.

Jennifer D. Mitchell - Ms. Mitchell graduated from Texas A&M University with a Bachelors Degree in Aerospace Engineering. She has worked at NASA JSC for 19 years in the Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Division, working on guidance, navigation and control systems in both technical and management roles. She recently transferred to the JSC Engineering Directorate’s Systems Architecture and Integration Office. She currently serves as the systems engineering and integration lead for Project Morpheus.

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